Name: Anonymous 2010-02-16 21:23
She doesn't even bother playing the games she writes about, what a whore. This is from her new essay "Vidyagamez are the Simulacrulum":
>And I wonder: what would it really take for people to
>understand this? Perhaps one or two carefully picked examples?...
>Let's give it a go then...
>Imagine playing Pac-Man on a PC running MAME, hooked up to an LCD screen
>and an arcade stick. And then imagine someone removing the monitor and replacing it
>with a miniature mechanical version of the game's first stage,
>complete with a miniature Pac-Man, ghosts, bonus items, etc.
>all of which can be made to appear or disappear through holes on
>the floor of the device (including the walls, so that they can be rearranged for each succeeding stage),
>the entire thing controlled by digital actuators hooked up to a custom-made
>expansion card plugged into one of the computer's I/O ports,
>and therefore completely controllable via additional instructions coded in to
>a hacked version of the game. -- Did you get all that? It's nothing other than
>a pinball-style version of Pac-Man; it's not really even that high-tech --
>it is in fact a great deal less high-tech than the original LCD setup.
>And... ummmmm... come to think of it, I could have saved me some effort and just used the example of a pinball
>machine and its digital adaptation... But hey, I've already typed the whole thing out, so let's just keep it.
>And I wonder: what would it really take for people to
>understand this? Perhaps one or two carefully picked examples?...
>Let's give it a go then...
>Imagine playing Pac-Man on a PC running MAME, hooked up to an LCD screen
>and an arcade stick. And then imagine someone removing the monitor and replacing it
>with a miniature mechanical version of the game's first stage,
>complete with a miniature Pac-Man, ghosts, bonus items, etc.
>all of which can be made to appear or disappear through holes on
>the floor of the device (including the walls, so that they can be rearranged for each succeeding stage),
>the entire thing controlled by digital actuators hooked up to a custom-made
>expansion card plugged into one of the computer's I/O ports,
>and therefore completely controllable via additional instructions coded in to
>a hacked version of the game. -- Did you get all that? It's nothing other than
>a pinball-style version of Pac-Man; it's not really even that high-tech --
>it is in fact a great deal less high-tech than the original LCD setup.
>And... ummmmm... come to think of it, I could have saved me some effort and just used the example of a pinball
>machine and its digital adaptation... But hey, I've already typed the whole thing out, so let's just keep it.